Bounce-Back Victory: 3 Big Takeaways from Mavs' 121-114 Win vs. Thunder

After a two-game skid over the weekend, Luka Doncic and the Mavericks bounced back on Monday against the Thunder.

The Dallas Mavericks ended their two-game skid on Monday night in a 121-114 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Dallas got off to a sluggish start as Oklahoma City jumped out to a 28-23 lead after the first quarter. But in the second, the Mavs caught fire, outscoring the Thunder 43-24 to take a 14-point lead into halftime.

Despite a strong effort from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder, Luka Doncic and the Mavs held on to get the victory.

Doncic led the way for Dallas with 38 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists on 13-of-27 from the field and 9-of-10 from the free throw line.

Here are the 3 big takeaways from Monday’s victory.

Point Dinwiddie

Spencer Dinwiddie had one of his all-around best games of the season in Monday’s victory, finishing with 20 points, seven rebounds, and 10 assists on 7-of-16 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 from downtown.

Dinwiddie’s playmaking was at a season-high clip, finding teammates off the bounce in the pick-and-roll and finding open shooters like Tim Hardaway Jr. from deep.

Spencer Dinwiddie’s averages through 27 games this season:

16.8 pts, 3.3 reb, 5.3 ast, 1 stl
46.0 FG%, 41.4 3P%, 83.8 FT%

3.16 ast/to ratio. Pretty solid.

— Dalton Trigg (@dalton_trigg) December 13, 2022

This is the kind of secondary playmaking that Dallas has been missing. Dinwiddie’s more of a score-first kind of dual-guard, but he definitely has the ability to get others involved.

With the lack of facilitators off the bench, Dinwiddie’s playmaking may need to come into play more if the Mavs don’t make a trade for another ball handler ... or if Kemba Walker can't be utilized in that role.

Shooting Improvements

The Mavs have suffered from free throw woes so far this season, most notably in Friday’s loss to the Bucks, where Dallas missed six free throws down the stretch and shot just 10-of-24 in the one-point loss.

The poor free throw shooting even brought Mavs owner Mark Cuban to comment on it, saying that the team "would have five more wins" if they shot better from the charity stripe.

On Monday, the team showed improvement, shooting 84 percent from the line by making 21-of-25 attempts.

Dallas also shot 40.7 percent from 3-point range in the victory, marking only the fifth game this season that the team shot over 40 percent from downtown and over 80 percent from the free throw line, coming away with wins in all five contests.

No team in the league is currently hitting 40 percent of their 3s, but knocking down 80 percent of their free throws, which nine teams currently do, is attainable for Dallas — and it should be a goal they set from here on out.

Kidd’s bench rotation

The excitement and unknown surrounding rookie guard Jaden Hardy is evident from the fans and even his teammates. And though Jason Kidd has voiced that the team “needs to find time” for Hardy, his actions don’t match his comments.

In Saturday’s loss to Chicago, Hardy scored a career-high 15 minutes while playing a career-high 23 minutes with Doncic and Josh Green out. He was also forced to play most of his minutes alongside JaVale McGree, which negatively affected his box score plus/minus. But in Monday’s win, Hardy didn’t see the floor.

Instead, Kidd opted to play Frank Ntilikina off the bench, who finished with six points and two assists while being a -8 in 18 minutes.

At this point, the Mavs and the rest of the league know what Ntilikina is. He’s a long, above average defender, but on offense, he’s a bit of a non-factor.

With Hardy, we’ve seen flashes of him scoring the ball at will. With the Texas Legends, he’s been a bonafide bucket, leading the G League in scoring, and do so on near 50/40/90 efficiency.

Kidd has preached about needing to get Hardy more minutes, and it might be time to deliver to the congregation.

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